I was going to comment on the last video how between the goggles and preaching about connection and anti-ego stuff that sounds a lot like instrumentality, that Mike was seeming a lot like Keel from Evangelion; and now in this video, Mike just looks like Keel from Evangelion. I was also going to tell the life extension guy, since he brought up nanomachines, to not let the nanomachines end up in a 13 Sentinels situation; and that's all I'm going to say on that matter because I don't want to spoil anyone on that game. Speaking of which: As much of a pain as it might be to set up due how non-linear it is, would you guys consider doing a podcast on 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim in the future? It is an absolutely insane sci-fi story, one of the best I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. It pays homage to all of the classic sci-fi stories, in particular the ones of the 80s, while managing to masterfully tie them all together in an original story with one jaw-dropping plot twist after another. It is a masterclass in non-linear storytelling, and I'd really like to see you guys break down the plot and storytelling techniques used in the game, for two reasons in particular. 1. There are seriously not enough videos out there analyzing this very niche and relatively unknown game. 2. Much like with Xenogears, you only get to experience this game's mind-screwy rollercoaster of a plot for the first time once, then all you can do is enjoy watching other people experience it for the first time. Again, might be a bit of a pain to plan out because of how non-linear it is, but I think this game truly deserves the State of the Arc treatment.

Very cool video!

Guys, I'm so happy that you are going straight to Xenosaga 3! I GARANTEE that you will love it!

Really glad you guys did Pied Piper and Missing Year, it wouldn't have felt complete without it given the types of things you focus on with this podcast, and both episodes were top notch. Looking forward to Episode III getting covered!

Never thought anyone would be talking about these games, love ❤️

as a person who didn't own an n64 but still played some of these games at friends houses it still felt nostalgic

Eu acho que alguém tá levando a sério de mais a história de não se levar a sério. Um abração Mike. Esperando por mais Xenoblade. ❤

Very excited to see you guys experience III. Easily the best "game" of the three even though I personally have the stongest attachment to I. But I think you'll be taken aback by the step-up in production values from II especially. When you covered Ep 1 it triggered a replay of the whole trilogy for me, and I'm struggling with not doing it again, haha. But suffice to say thanks again for these.

Episode II not havign a voice director makes SO much sense. Because even though I don't like the new voices, even some of the returning characters had some bad line reads. Thank goodness for Wendee Lee in III as well as the returns of Lia Sargent (Shion) and Bridget Hoffman (KOS-MOS) from Episode I. Not to ignore the rest of the very engaging philosophical discussion. Thanks as usual, guys.

Probably the best PowerPoint I've ever seen.

I never got to see this part of the available Xenosaga media, so thank you for being so thorough in experiencing and discussing all things Xenosaga for this series! It does nothing but increase my appreciation for a game series I already loved.

This may be the only RPG series story more pretentious than the FF13 games.

1:12:30 Realians are made out of biological material. Which is how Virgil was able to eat Realians. Realians often get referred to like machines but this is more an indication of how society treats them. It's not dissimilar from how we treat our labor class.

Oh, i almost forgot how interesting and deep that episode was ~ Almadel...

Xenoblade started out much more simplified and straight forward with "Monado: Beginning of the World", but each new Xenoblade game after that just get's more and more "Xeno". Especially with 3. And I feel Soma Bringer should be brought up in these discussions since it's proto-Xenoblade. Gameplay, and all of the story, have pretty much been recycled into all current Xenoblade games. In any case, I'm really enjoying these discussions.

A crime really that this section of the story was reduced to a flash animation, The whole series really needs a remake incorporating this and Pied Piper back into the main games.

Shion is much better ginger.

Cmon guys it's really not that hard to follow the terminology in Xenosaga.

I think the Database is a necessity in Xenosaga 3. It really fills out the world.

Hey Mike, I hope your pink eye clears up soon, don't pick at it and you'll get better.

Great video as always. I just hope you guys notice the connections with Xenogears. There are a lot of characters and machines that appear in Xenosaga that exist in Xenogears. Specially in Episode 3.

Appearances aside, I'm really enjoying you guys doing these side stories, I don't know if I'd ever have heard of the otherwise. I'm just shaking with excitement for episode 3 👌

I’m super late to the party here, but I actually really like the chase sequence in episode 2. It’s actually one of the few standout moments of that game for me. Yeah it might not be any deeper than any other action scene but I dug it. Plus the track that plays during it slaps.

Sure , Xenoblade doesnt use confusing and awkward dialogue, being purposely being obtuse and preventing players from understanding even the most basic concept of whats going on, but Xenoblade games use Nopons. It comes out even.

While still only halfway through Xenoblade 2 myself, I’m feeling pretty confident in saying that Xenoblade 1 is the black sheep of all the Xenogames. That being said, 1 was fantastic and is the best game that is the least like the others in a series (So long as we don’t include X.)

Did Mike lose a bet or something???

wait did you skip the outer file drama cd's for the first game

I always thought the whole Xenosaga story should have been written in a series of novels. Sadly because of Soraya Saga being bullied by fans and pissed off there is no chance for this to ever happen.

So aree they doing xenoblade immediately after Xenosaga 3?

I really appreciate these videos, I never got to play pied piper or watch missing year and I love all the xeno games. Thank you for covering these games!

I played Episodes II and III back to back right when Episode III originally came out (got it for a mere $30, today it tends to go for 10 times that) and played them without having played Pied Piper or A Missing Year. So yeah, definitely a lot more confusing without that context. Episode III's database helps but still can't compare to actually experiencing them. Regarding the overall plan for the Xenosaga series, it was to be six episodes, with three two episode arcs. As you speculated, the first arc was to focus on Shion with presumably the other two focusing on other characters. This got totally derailed when Episode I failed to cover as much content was originally intended. It essentially took Episode I, Episode II and Pied Piper just to cover what was supposed to be in the original first episode, with A Missing Year and Episode III to be in what was to be in the original second episode. Plus a lot of content getting cut too (there is a post out there from Soraya Saga with some of the details). Whatever was supposed to be in the original episodes III - VI we never got that far. Which segways good into the Xenoblade vs. Xenosaga conversation from the start of the podcast. It seems kinda obvious to me that after Xenosaga concluded Takahashi accepted that he was being far too ambitious with his games and his storytelling and went in a totally different direction. Xenoblade is much more of a gameplay/world exploration type game; it does have a pretty decent story but one that is nowhere on the level of Gears/Saga. It wasn't even supposed to be called Xenoblade, but rather Monado. Xenoblade 2 and 3 at which point they were always designed as "Xeno" games have a more in depth story than the original Xenoblade and even throw in a good amount of Gears/Saga references or themes but still aren't anywhere as close to the depth as Gears/Saga. I for one still enjoy the games a ton but there are old school Gears/Saga fans who hate that "Xeno" games aren't at the same level as Gears and Saga was. Personally I'd say a game like Nier Automata finds that perfect balance that Takahashi was unable to find with Gears and Saga; a game that does have a lot of in depth philosophical and other elements to it while also being really good on a gameplay level and has mass appeal.

I believe Ars Nova was used to designate the change in composition or style of music in the Kingdom of France during the Middle Ages. After a very quick search, it seems it was during the 14-century that Ars Nova was used in regard to music. Within the context of Xenosaga, all that comes to my mind is the song of Nephilim if we take the name at face value. If I wanted to make a few more interpretations stretching the relation of arts, Almadel could be considered an artifice that is intended to mimic a human being and Grimoire desired to have her be the new incarnation of his daughter. Can't Wait for Mike to reveal that the eyewear is all a commentary on how building a mystery without context creates confusion and the longer it continues the larger the risk of leading to a disappointing conclusion.

I haven't been keeping up with this series, why is Mike Cyclops in the thumbnail?

Mike really practicing what he preached in the nier automata ep

I'd argue Gears and Saga actually aren't confusing in an alienating way, and that they wield their stranger elements in an effectively intriguing manner. The reason for that is because they didn't rely on unknown terminology to carry a good story or even a good mystery -- they focus on pretty grounded human drama with the loftier and more impenetrable concepts unfolding at a measured pace in parallel or in the background. Saga starts with an enigmatic object causing people to disappear. Okay, good, a mystery. A force of alien ghosts attack. A robotics engineer is working on a powerful and dangerous android designed to stop the hostile space ghosts. Her co-worker is in love with her but he's a dweeb. She's facing pressure from the military leadership. There's artificial people that serve society, and she has an affinity for them. She meets a soldier who is racist against the artificial people. Her experimental robot wakes up at a critical moment and casually shoots the soldier, and then threatens to murder an innocent crew of salvagers, causing her to question her robot's callous efficiency. This is all universally relatable drama that can work for any audience broadly interested in sci-fi. Since it's done the work to get you interested in the characters, world, and drama, you should be developing both a curiosity about the more arcane elements, and a willingness to meet the story halfway. If it didn't get me interested on a human level, I wouldn't have any inclination to care about what 'U-DO' or 'URTV' mean... but it has, so I am! Even so, you don't really have to worry about most terminology to get the main point, you'll never be lost as to what is happening in the main drama -- the important thing is that baby Albedo doesn't want to be left alone. On the other hand, Final Fantasy 13 is an example of when a story fails so badly on a fundamental dramatic level that its attempts to interest me in its broader concepts are fruitless. Twin Peaks: The Return is a piece of fiction that's genuinely incoherent to anyone but those most willing to play on its terms. Admittedly, I love that series specifically because it's so far away from conventional storytelling and it's an antidote to the pervasive boredom of derivative, played-out media. But that's on the extreme end -- the original two Xeno series aren't anywhere close to being as esoteric. By comparison, Blade is so straightforward, has so little to say, and demands so little of its audience, that I find it tragically boring, and kind of beneath the Xeno name. It's really a shame that Tanaka and Takahashi have so completely given up on story in games. There was nothing else like it.

Kind of sad to see Mike with his new bionic eyes… another victim of the life recycling act. He should sue!

I kind of remember these events and I've never watched this. Maybe they touch upon them on Xenosaga 3.

I knew you would but still so happy to see Missing year covered! You did a better job summarizing it than themselves or Episode III will, haha. Now you only have the three drama CDs, the Anime, the DS game and all the books left to cover, hehe. Maybe a bit disappointing Nephilim wasn't a "higher being" but she sure became one after the events 4000+ years ago not 2000+ (minor correction). I don't remember when the flash videos got taken down from the official site but I did watch them before Episode III and as expected didn't understand much back then but still enough to get some more context. Also, the day Yuki Kajiura finally released the full ending theme of Missing year in uncompressed quality is one of the happiest in my life, I love that song so much!

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 A Missing Off-Seer

My reaction to their predictions of the future of this series from someone who has played them all and knows the story relatively well is pretty much the same whether they get it right or wrong. Either way, all I can do is grin and say, "just you wait and see!"

So, with regards to the differences in storytelling between Xenogears and Xenoblade - with Xenoblade, Takahashi started working with a number of other directors and writers, so in that series you’re not getting the pure, undiluted Takahashi that you get in Xenosaga (and Xenogears too). I think this is the reason why as much as I love Xenoblade (I’m playing through 3 as we speak), they’ve never left quite as much of an impact on me as Xenosaga and Xenogears has. I’ve joked in the past that Xenosaga and Xenogears are games that seem to have been created specifically for me. I’ve definitely got an otaku style personality, and so does Takahashi - in fact, Takahashi seems to be an otaku for many of the same things that I am (science fiction, psychology, religion, mecha anime). So of course, I’m gonna react more strongly to Xenosaga and Xenogears, but I fully understand that my reasons are entirely personal and idiosyncratic. Xenoblade is by far the more accessible story, and I don’t fault it for that, because they’re great games in their own right. Also, Mike, you were right in thinking that Shion and her cohort were only supposed to be the main characters for the first story arc - had Xenosaga actually became the originally planned six games, each subsequent story arc would’ve taken place in a different time, with different main characters. I actually remember reading an interview with Takahashi where he said the only reoccurring characters would’ve been chaos and KOS-MOS, albeit in very different forms

Ok Cyclops

Mike might have given Hawaii another chance with that TAN

Ok what’s the deal with the goggles?

Oh, by the way, I think this novel is the only way to learn who Nephilim is.

Is Mike wearing various goggles to see how long it will take before someone asks why he's wearing the goggles? Also, where can I find goggles like the ones from the previous episode?

Discovering Mike's new.. outfits.. has become the highlight of my week xD

Now only Secretcyberagents are going to be able to stop Mike.

Mike slightly lifting his goggles to read near the end of the video was hilarious.

Funniest thing to me about the story is that Zohar research was done on Toronto so there's a good chance Grimoire was...*gulp* Canadian.